Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4872 Private (Pte) Richard James Murray, 14th Battalion. An engine driver from Koroit, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Murray embarked with the 15th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Anchises on 14 March 1916. Later wounded on two separate occasions, he was promoted to Lance Corporal. He subsequently received multiple shrapnel wounds at the Somme and, on 11 February 1917, aged 33, he died as a result of his wounds and was buried in the Bernafay Wood British Cemetery, Montauban, France. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession to take photographs at the Broadmeadows and Seymour army camps during the First World War. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased the original glass negatives from Algernon Darge, along with the photographers' notebooks. The notebooks contain brief details, usually a surname or unit name, for each negative.